A young male jaguar has been photographed south of Tucson, according to Arizona Game and Fish Department officials. The photograph was taken by a surveillance camera that was monitoring potential jaguar travel corridors on the Arizona/Mexico border.

In an effort to conserve the rare endangered species, the exact location at which the photograph was taken isn’t being released at this time. Surveillance cameras have been used in some locations since May of 1997.

“This photograph is really exciting. It is great to know that jaguars are roaming our borderlands, at least occasionally. We will continue to monitor the area to see if the animal is a transient or attempting to establish a territory. Since we are unsure whether the animal is still in the area, there are no proposed changes for land or recreational use, ” said Bill Van Pelt, Arizona Game and Fish Department’s nongame mammals program manager.

Van Pelt said a Jaguar Conservation Team (JAGCT) was formed in 1997 in cooperation with residents in southern Arizona/New Mexico to gather jaguar data and monitor potential travel corridors on the borderlands. The effort in the United States has also stimulated a parallel conservation effort in Mexico. All JAGCT members, along with federal and state wildlife managers, have been notified to be on the alert and to watch for jaguar.

As part of this cooperative effort, the Malapai Borderlands Group, founded in 1997, has established a fund to cover depredation expenses if a proven jaguar livestock kill is identified.

Jaguars were placed on the federal endangered species list July 22, 1997 and illegal take of the species could result in state and federal fines of up to $100,000 fine and a year in prison.

There have been 63 jaguar sightings in Arizona since 1900. The last Arizona photograph was taken in August 1996. The closest known population of jaguars is 135 miles south, deep in the Sierra Madre of Mexico

Jaguars (Panthera onca), which are the third largest cat in the world, are secretive cats that are muscular with relatively short limbs and a deep-chested body. They are cinnamon-buff in color with many black spots that are often broken circles or rosettes. A black or melanistic phase can occur.

Jaguars are the only cat species found in the Western Hemisphere to truly roar, like an African lion, tiger, or leopard. Historically, jaguars were found in virtually every habitat type known to Arizona and New Mexico.

These habitats include everything from shrub-invaded desert grasslands to montane-conifer forest. In recent times, they have been most closely associated with evergreen-oak woodlands, extending northward from Mexico.

Jaguars once ranged from southern Argentina, up along the coasts of Central America and Mexico, and into the southwestern United States as far north as the Grand Canyon. Today, this range is greatly reduced and fragmented.

Throughout their entire range, jaguars are recognized and protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). In the United States and Mexico, they are considered an endangered species under each country’s Endangered Species Acts.

In addition, an Arizona-New Mexico Conservation Agreement, involving participation by state and federal agencies, local governments, nongovernmental entities, such as the ranching community, houndsmen, and private citizens has been established to help conserve the species. The goals of this agreement include educating the public, identifying habitat and travel corridors for population maintenance, and the development of strong public-private partnerships using innovative and adaptive management to conserve the jaguar in Arizona and New Mexico.

Recognizing the lack of information about jaguars, the team has been aggressive in collecting sound scientific data. In 1998, members from the working group traveled to Brazil to collect information on jaguar depredation on livestock and published a book on jaguar sign. Working group members are also monitoring remote-census cameras in mountain ranges recently occupied by jaguars. JAGCT is currently printing an informational brochure on jaguars.

If you see a jaguar, it is extremely important to note several things:

· Observe specifics of the area so managers can find the exact location.

· Note the specific characteristics of the animal coloration, size, posture and behavior.

· If possible, take a photograph or video of the jaguar and the area.

· Collect any sign (scat, hair, track tracing) if possible, without destroying the integrity of the track.

A very interesting observation to say the least! It would be even more interesting to know something about this particular cat. The cats (Family Felidae) have dispersal behavior just like the dog species (Family Canidae), and the big cats can disperse incredibly long distances. It would surely be nice to know the age and gender of this animal, and if it is a female if she had a litter of kittens. Unfortunately we will likely never determine this. One animal like this can certainly generate a lot of politics, but one animal really doesn't do a great deal for a population, but it still may indicate some changes occurring within the population. Time will tell.

Encore--If it was determined this jaguar to be a young male, that means somebody had to get their hands on it to determine gender and make some kind of estimate of age. I wonder how they did that? That sounds like a project in which even angels might think twice.

If they are using the photo to determine age/gender they may have some problems. I have seen radio-collared female coyotes lift their leg to pee on a clump of grass, and males squat to pee. If that is what they are using for gender determination, they really don't have much to go on.

Nevertheless, like you say it is an extremely interesting observation!

The part that I'm a bit leary of is:"Since we are unsure whether the animal is still in the area, there are no proposed changes for land or recreational use, ” said Bill Van Pelt, Arizona Game and Fish Department’s nongame mammals program manager."

Reminds me of a favorite fishing spot of mine that gets shut down now due to nesting eagles. I had to slow down yesterday AM to allow 3 eagles time to fly up off of a road killed opossum - I wonder if I could get the Fed.'s to buy me out so that I didn't disturb feeding eagles.... kaaa-ching goes the cash register.

I love rare wildlife more than most, I just shudder a bit when I see comments made about shutting areas down to recreational use (read as hunting) from some politico.

I might be able to shed some light on this or more porbably on the person that took the picture. For about 10 years I worked on a survey crew with a Jack. Jack was a long time dog man who has hunted lions, bear, racoon .... about everything with hounds since the very early 1960's. Jack retired from surveying about a year before the last picture taken of Jaguar. While hunting in the southern part of Arizona he was fortunate enough to tree a jaguar. He always carries a video camera along so he filmed this jaguar for quite a while before pulling the dogs (about the same time another person took 35mm film of another one a bit further east). Jack parlayed his experience into a grant (or something like that) that allowed him to study the jaguar. This study brought him to the Pantenal (sp) region of South America to study the big cat on the ranches down there. A fortunate combination of his long experience with big cats and hard serious study led him to become the Jaguar expert in the state of Arizona (Jack reports his findings to Bill Van Pelt). When a suspected jaguar livestock kill is reported Jack is called to investigate. Suprisingly enough there is a vast difference between the way a Jaguar Kills and eats his pray, from the way a Mt. Lion will.

For us hunters Jack is a wonderful asset. He is deffinately not "green" and he has a way of working with the "greener" forces out there. He has deffinately shown a side of hunters that has caused some to rethink there ideas of what hunting and hunters are all about.

A few years ago he started a very extensive remote/hidden camera study of logical jaguar travel routes and until this story hit the news services I did not know that he had any success. I do not actually know that this is one of Jacks pictures but it is very likely that it is.

He did get some very interesting pictures of about every conceivable animal on the area. He's got some very interesting pictures of illegal activity but he destroys them because he does not want to compramise his study.

About the sex of the cat issue. Jack says that the physical differances between a female and a male are VERY obvious. He may also have gotten a going away/quartering picture that would deffinately show the sex.

Interesting to us callers. There actually is a way to call a jaguar. The old timers used a gord with leather stretched over the openning. In the middle of the openning there was a rope or raw hide piece attached (the hide is like a loose drum). The caller pulls the rope letting it slide thruogh his fingers. This makes sort of a rumbleing noise. That was the way the old timers did it. Modern day callers in South America simply grab an empty 5 galloon bucket, hold it over there head and holler WHHOOOmmmff (or something like that). The sound is much like an African Lions roar. The Jaguar will not respond but will ROAR back, giving away his position.

The Game and Fish Department does not believe that the Jaguar has or ever has had a viable population in Arizona. They believe that the big cats travel through the region in an attempt to find a home range and for all practical purposes never stay for long. Jacks study has largely proven that to be the case.

Michael--I had to ask those kinds of questions based on a career with the canid species. I don't know much about the big cats at all. My only real exposure to any big cat data is that I ran a bunch of computer population models on jaguars, ocelots, and margays in Colombia for a friend of mine. Your friend Jack definitely sounds like he has both oars in the water re: jaguars. Sounds to me like Jack is one of those rare individuals that is a 1st rate biologist without ever going through the bother of college. My compliments to Jack. I have known a couple of others like him in my career. When those kind of guys say something one needs to be listening, because what they are saying is the bottom line.

During my freshman orientation at the College of Natural Resources a professor made the statement “Those of you who can not decide between becoming a wildlife or fisheries biologist consider the following fact:People spend all day trudging through the woods spend their off time on the water and vice versa. If you love to hunt become a fisheries biologist” So I became a fisheries biologist.

My undergrad "focus area" was fisheries and I spent my last year and a half of undergrad working for the University fisheries dept. Did a quick career change though soon after.

Even though it was lot of work I always liked pulling in exerimental-mesh gill nets, almost like Xmas morning, you just never knew what interesting things you were gonna get. hahaha. I sure dont miss the smell of formalin.

Pomoxis--Welcome to PM. I thought that name looked familiar. When Robb mentioned crappies I certainly remembered then. Only had a couple of fisheries classes and that goes back a few years; right after the Crimean war.

I don't think I would want to get tangled up with a jaguar by using a spear. Think I'll stick to fishing myself. Around here some fishermen are avid, others are rabid, and some of us are flat out psycho.

I am mostly working on Threatened and Endangered Species issues involving various salmon stocks. I cover an are a bout the size of the state of Delaware. Plenty of land use issues to be involved with. For relaxation I am chasing a cougar that is just at the Astoria City limits. It is not cool handling the phone call from a parent whose child pet cat was taken right in front of the little girl.

The fellow who took the 35mm photographs of a jaguar in Arizona is Warner Glenn, a long time houndman and lion hunting guide; also a rancher in southern Arizona.

While guiding a client on a hunt, Warner's hounds unexpectedly got after a jaguar and eventually bayed it on the ground. He had a camera in his saddle bags, and was fortunate enough to get pictures. He published them in 1996 in a little book called "Eyes Of Fire".